Americans have been faced in recent years with any number of health hazards, hazards identified by the government and the medical establishment alike as life-threatening, and hazards then subject to health campaigns intended to inform the people of the nature of the problem and to change behaviors so as to reduce the risk, reduce the incidence of the disease or health problems associated with the risk, and counter other messages from advertising and elsewhere in society that push people toward behaviors which lead to poor health. Among the health campaigns that have been undertaken and that have become major issues with television and other advertising are the issues of smoking, drinking, unsafe sexual activity, behaviors contributing to heart disease, and overall fitness through exercise. How effective these campaigns are depends on the message sent, the ability people have to change their behaviors, and the degree to which they come to accept the message of the health campaign. An examination of the issue shows the different facets of media health campaigns, types of campaigns that have been waged, their efficacy, and the reasons for their effectiveness or lack of it.
Smith (1991) delves into one of the pressing problems of our time--how to change harmful behavior to good behavior. Massive amounts of money are spent each year in trying to change harmful behavior to good behavior. In describing these efforts, Smith (1991) suggested that: "Changing human behavior is like reshaping concrete" (Smith, 1991, 222). Smith examined some of the types of programs that have been developed to change behavior, from programs for drug abusers to bringing high school dropouts back to school. Smith (1991) notes that there is a pressing need for effective programs to change behavior given the toll taken each year by drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, and young people dropping out of school. There are four basic approaches to changing behavi...